Room Treaments - Where To Begin...

Appreciate your insight. Excuse my lack of knowledge, but if my speakers (Spendor D9.2) are base spiked to carpet, aren’t they already effectively isolated?

No. Not at all. Not that a lot of people haven’t been misinformed into thinking this. The most common false narrative is that a spike is a kind of diode. Or it couples. The people pushing these ideas never can keep it straight and are immune to the illogic of their mutually exclusive theories.

I know this very well by the way having been one of them, thoroughly indoctrinated in this nonsense until the reality of it being BS was proven false by some very profound and obvious listening tests.

Isolation is pretty much only accomplished by springs. Been used in industry, science, engineering, now audio. Not just any springs however. We had one of the biggest loons in the field here hawking "super stiff springs" that were way to stiff to work properly. Consequently giving springs a bad name. Which was his goal. Everything he did was intended to screw with audiophiles.

Anyway, point is springs in order to work properly must be sized to the load. Ideally they will allow free movement in all planes and at a fundamental resonance of about 4Hz. Below that and vibrations will be transmitted to the component, but it won’t matter because only really large amplitude matter then and we don’t hear that low anyway. Above that where we do hear with great sensitivity springs filter vibrations, a lot.

So the trick is to use springs just stiff enough to result in the component bouncing on them at about 4Hz. This is effective isolation.

What happens then is the component still generates its own internal vibrations. But now the only thing vibrating is the component. So vibrations dissipate and die much faster. The result is easy to hear. Lower background noise for blacker background, and much greater detail, together creates a sense of improved dynamics.

On spikes what happens is the component vibrates, the spikes transmit this into the floor or shelf, which now that is vibrating, and like a bell rings right back into the component. Also vibrations travel all through the floor, up the walls to the ceiling, up the rack to the turntable or DAC, tube amp- all adversely affected.

Real easy to get a set of Nobsound springs, only $30, prove it to yourself. Which is what I did. Way better than anything else you will find, at least until you get up to Townshend which are a lot better but also a lot more expensive. Worth it. I always recommend try and learn cheap, proof of concept, then once you know what you’re doing go big if you want big. But you will be surprised how much improvement you will get from a couple sets of Nobsound. Then if you go Townshend, wow, whole other level.

Here's a quick demo using a seismograph showing how speaker energy that goes into the floor comes right back up into the speaker. Notice this is on a concrete floor. So much for the idea concrete is the answer!

OP: I have read countless comments that the best thing you can do to improve the listening experience is to acoustically treat the room. But where does one gain the expertise to do so? There are so many products/options out there. I have no clue where to begin (or if I even need to do it)

Already told you how to gain the expertise: clap and listen. Use your ears. That simple.

What I left out is you don’t even need to do that. By far the best thing you can do is simply fine tune your speaker placement. By fine tune I mean use a tape measure to get them precisely symmetrical and equidistant. Next take everything apart, clean all the contacts, and when reconnecting this time take care to route all the wires keeping them away from all the other wires, and off the floor, and for that matter off of everything. No more tangles of wires right on top of each other.

A big reason so many audiophiles think the room is important is because they haven’t isolated anything and so are transmitting a huge amount of speaker energy straight into the floor, walls and ceiling. If you energize every surface of your room this way then of course your room is gonna be a huge problem. Duh. Effectively isolate your speakers and other components on Nobsound springs and this will eliminate a lot of that. More and more are catching on.

Between the clap test and the tape measure and the springs you will have spent an afternoon and about $100 and achieved results that with GIK would take $1500 and 3 months. Also you would have learned an incredible lot about sound, vs learning how to stick expensive panels on a wall. 

Don't judge a book by its cover. The cover says, "Acoustics hard. Use headphones."

It is more difficult to correct what you haven’t yet measured/heard.

Now we’re getting somewhere. You can read all you want, it is of no use until and unless you learn to hear what they’re talking about. Fortunately this is super easy.

Clap your hands. Might seem silly but the lowly hand clap produces a wide range of frequencies from a point source making it ideal for learning about acoustics. So one clap, and listen. Pay attention to the way the clap itself sounds, the first echo reflection, and how the sound trails off.

If it is a thud with no reverb your room is dead and acoustic panels will only make it worse. If there is a sharp echo or ringing sound this is flutter echo you will want to break it up with diffusion panels. If there is no door and opens to a lively room you will have a long decay to deal with.

Now move around. Clap/listen/move, Stand at one side of the room and clap, repeat from the other. Won’t take long, minute or two, you will have mapped out your room and in a way you will actually understand because you have heard it.

Then get a sheet of Owens Corning 703 acoustic panel at the hardware store. Repeat your hand clapping only this time moving the panel around to different places.

It is easy to pay someone like GIK a lot of money to tell you what to do. Here’s how that goes. Mike Lavigne has by far the best room with the best acoustics I ever seen. Mike paid a bundle for the very best professional acoustic design. That’s not why his room is so great. Mike then put in the time to listen and figure out what is really going on and correct the room correction.

There really is no substitute for listening.